The Silence: Spectrum
by Molten-Ashes
Summary: A companion fic to The Silence which I recommend reading first for this to make sense. The alternating Points of View of those who tried to rescue the survivors of Praxus. (Chapter 1: The Kin)


Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R

(So, I have a love/despise relationship with The Silence. On the one hand it is one of my better emotional pieces of writing and on the other it is despised because the fic became a catalyst and tipping point for a family feud. It has taken me a while to actually brave this universe again and try to finish it. I hope you all enjoy and please excuse any glaring mistakes as this isn't beta read.)

* * *

It had been one of the worst orns of Smokescreen's activation when Ratchet told him he wouldn't be fit to travel to Praxus for its Cybertron renowned celebration that took place every one hundred vorns, a celebration that every single Praxian alive, or even dead if you listened to some eccentrics, attended. It was a feeling of intense restlessness that flared up inside the spark every time the celebration drew near, like the instinct for migrating birds to flock and travel. It was a feeling that could only be banished by returning to the city you were birthed in. Those that didn't attend were always left with an itchy feeling for at least a vorn afterwards.

He bitterly blamed it on one of the new recruits after a weapons demonstration had gotten out of hand and had huffed the early joors of the orn away feeling as if he would crawl out of his armour with the powerful migrating instinct deep within him. He only called up his creators when he was feeling brave and told his war hating Sire that he wouldn't be able to return home for the main celebration orn with no little nervousness and regret. Predictably his Carrier had a hissy fit at him and his Sire merely rolled his optics stating that he had better make it up to the distressed femme when he eventually managed to hobble back to Praxus.

He had been recharging when Praxus died, dreaming when his Creators died in the Silence that followed in the bomb's pede steps. In his recharge he never even twitched as Creator bonds snapped and disintegrated.

He awoke next orn to see Ratchet staring down at him in pity, making his vents stall as the truth finally slipped from the horrified medic's vocaliser in a wash of static and jumbled words. A pressure built up within his spark, like bottled feelings struggling to dislodge the cork, when he frantically tried to call his creators, his friends, even some of the enforcers he knew from having been in their cells once too often.

When even that failed, the pressure exploded from his chest in a tortured wail that had many of the bots passing the Medical Bay shivering down to their core. His spark thrashed and screamed inside its metal frame, calling for the brethren of his city.

It was often said Praxians had a spiritual connection to their city because of the hours they would contently sit and stare at their beloved crystal gardens that only Praxians could hear emitting a heavenly tune.

How sorry they were that they were right.

Smokescreen wailed, optics unable to shed tears, shuttered, clenched tight as he fought the truth that was cementing itself into his processor like the firm grip of a vice as his family bonds remained mute, his reasoning slipping like water. His servos clenched against his helm, fingers pressed with bending force over his audios as if to deny his reality. _It's a dream, dear primus please!_

Ratchet approached him and he clawed at the medic, begging and screaming to be offlined as his spark tried to reconnect his Creator's snapped bonds with him, all the while screeching his grief and desperation before struggling from the berth, the Chief Medic caught him when his mending knee joint faltered under the sudden weight, energon lines shorn open when they tangled around a sharp edge that had not yet been sanded down.

He fell to his knees in the white and red medic's grasp, vents heaving, bewildered and emotionally hurting when he saw a small pool of energon beginning to form under his right knee plate. The world lost its colour and feeling, even its sound, judging by the amount of silent shouting Ratchet seemed to be doing, the medic's servos clamped tightly around his shoulders, shaking him like a ragdoll.

"Let me die."

===An Orn Later===

As soon as he was able to sneak out of the Medical Bay when Ratchet turned his back, he limped onto a ship bound straight for the Rescue Teams among the ruins of Praxus, immediately joining the search, not responding to urgent hails of his designation the others spoke, his servos scrabbling at the piles of rocks and rubble till they bled. Every time he dug someone out, the Silence had already claimed them. He continued, as his spark rendered itself into shards piece by tiny piece.

"Can you hear me Primus?!" he wailed suddenly, sinking despairingly to his working knee joint when he uncovered a mech clutching his young creation, crushed by a falling roof, slamming his fist against the floor on what had once been a thriving library as if to awaken his god, recently dug out frames being laid out respectfully in rows around him. "What kind of god does this? What kind of god lets this happen?!"

A visored mech stood by him as he grieved his brethren, the other Rescuers averting their gazes in either respect or uncertainty, the black and white mech's faceplate a solemn grimacing mask of misery and unease as he watched Smokescreen break down. "You shouldn't be here Smokescreen." He advised, finally squatting down beside the distraught Praxian who was probably the one of the last of his frame type. It had been reported every Praxian bar Smokescreen himself and a handful of late travellers had been in Praxus for its celebration.

"I have to find somebody." The dazed mech mumbled, dusting ashes from his thigh plating with a listless motion, rising back to his pedes with a stumble, dull optics smudged with ash. "I can't _not_ find somebody. It was a City of a Million. Somebody, anybody has to be alive, they can't all have been claimed by the Silence."

"We were to slow to get here Smokey." The azure visored mech soothed softly as if he were calming a distressed sparking, which admittedly, was what the poor tactician and psychologist had been reduced to with shock and a mindless grief. "I'm sorry. Let's go get your servos cleaned and welded back together," he suggested softly, noticing the torn palms and fingers that dangled at the blue and red mech's sides, silver finger struts poking through the torn blue metal flesh smeared with the energon of himself and his kin, the psychologist's golden chevron dulled with soot from the tantalising fires that still burned sulkily in their patches.

The dull creaking groans of charred buildings made the visored mech sigh, heaving the doorwinged mech into a slow walk and dragging him off to the medbay Ratchet had set up in hopes of somebody turning up. A miracle survivor that still perhaps wandered lost and alone in the dark.

Smokescreen's radio suddenly crackled with a private Praxian only frequency he hadn't had to use since he joined the Iacon based Autobots. He shuttered his optics when a soft lullaby leaked through his speakers into the medical tent as Ratchet set about mending his servos growling and threatening him about his foolish and reckless escape. He listened quietly, doorwings shaking to and fro like a snake charmed by its master as he began to shakily hum along, static colouring his verses.

Jerking as if he had been stung as a voice tapered off with a groan, the Praxian jumped from the medical berth and took off running, shoving a still grumbling Ratchet forcefully suddenly realising the frequency wasn't a local radio station, but an Enforcer Channel, using his own functioning radio to track the weakening signal. "Don't stop." He whispered feverishly as he heard another femme taper off from singing, thanking someone on the other side leaving a mech's voice to carry on its solo. "Please don't stop!"

"Smokescreen!" the Prime shouted after him, clearly startled as to why the young mech was running so fast past the still digging rescue crews in the once glorious Central Plaza, a garland of charred celebration flags fluttering from a shattered window, the grime covered blue mech skidding around a corner towards the still burning crystal gardens, pursued by a bewildered Jazz. "Wait!"

He paid no mind, "I hear you." He muttered stumbling blindly over rock piles and slipping in puddles of coolant and energon, twisting and clawing at his saboteur pursuer as the mech tried to grab his arm, fearing the Psychologist had finally tipped off the edge of his sanity. "I'm coming!"

The crying hum of the burning crystals in the majestic and horrible wastelands of the Gardens made him falter as it messed with the radio frequency, the mournful whimpers of the beautiful blue almost ceramic shards melting in their methane fires made his doorwings shiver in sympathy as he passed a femme's body with her helm blown through with plasma, a deactivated sparkling curled to her chestplates. He paused, helm jerking back and forth, up and down in his frantic search for that one survivor who was still singing.

"Where are you?!" he called, shouting, desperate, his headlights lighting up on his chestplates spotlighting his view.

The voice let out one last brilliant note, the channel fizzing out.

Jazz caught up to him, tackling him from his perch on a pile of rubble, throwing both mechs off the slanting structure of rubble and churned up road. Smokescreen landed on his back, doorwings sending a shooting pain across his sensor net, prompting him to flail like a landed fish, jerking upright into a sitting position.

The diversionary tactician froze.

There, sitting against a slab of energon stained rubble in an alcove was a wounded Enforcer, a small grey youngling curled up at his hip, the child's chevroned helm resting on a pearlescent white thigh. He had been right on top of his survivors the whole time.

"Jazz get Ratchet!" he shouted, scrambling forward, scratched doorwings forgotten as he ducked into the alcove, skidding to a stop before his frame-brother, dropping to his knees, heedless of his injuries, for what seemed like the hundredth time since the nightmare began, the saboteur immediately dismissed from his thoughts. Shaking servos clenching and unclenching, he raised them, bloody fingers cupping the unconscious Enforcer's cheek arches and tilting the mech's helm, like he was handling a cracked egg, so that their forehelms touched, gold chevron lined up against shattered ruby. "I've found you." He breathed, simple, gently, a sigh of fragile hope, "I've found you, my brother."


End file.
